In the spooling of filaments one or more strands of the finished product leave the manufacturing stage at a relatively high rate of speed to be wound onto appropriate receiving spools. Particularly in the situation where a plurality of ends are to be wound on individual spools the spooling is generally accomplished on a banked winding mechanism. A waste roll is provided substantially in line with, and beyond, the banked winding mechanism so that the filament ends not being spooled will not accumulate but will be removed from the area in which winding is accomplished in an orderly fashion, particularly prior to the time that the ends are anchored to the spools preparatory to being wound thereon. Removal of loose ends is particularly important when one appreciates that filament emanates from the source at speeds of up to approximately 800 feet per minute.
Historically, a workman would carefully select a particular end, whip a rolling hitch around the rotating spool on which it was to be wound in order to effect an anchor of the lead-in run to the spool and then quickly sever the tailing run so that the tail would continue to the waste roll while the feed run wound onto the rotating spool. Anchoring of the filament in this fashion requires considerable manual dexterity, and even workmen who have become relatively profficient are not always successful on the first attempt in effecting the required anchor of the feed run to the spool requisite to the winding operation, the difficulty of which is greatly compounded as a result of the speed at which the filament is travelling between the source and waste roll.
In addition, it should be appreciated that when filament is stripped axially from a non-rotatable spool, as it would be, for example, when contained in a canister of the type depicted in prior U.S. Pat. No. 3,502,281, a twist is imparted to the filament by the removal of each wrap. Although this twisting will exist with any filament, the affect thereof is considerably magnified when the cross-sectional configuration of the filament is such that the twist will not stay with the length of the filament in which it occurs but accumulates in a given length of filament adjacent the spool. This situation is epitomized when the filament is employed as a sewing thread, particularly if the configuration of the thread is such that the twist will not pass through the sewing machine. A hopeless snarl results which requires that the thread be severed, the twist removed, and the sewing machine re-threaded before continuing.